cayleygraph/cayley · error

filters inside expand all are not supported

Error message

filters inside expand all are not supported

What it means

The expand-all wildcard field must be a bare selection: it cannot carry directive-style filter arguments (`has`) or nested sub-fields. Any filtering inside an expand-all selection is unsupported and rejected.

Source

Thrown at query/graphql/graphql.go:458

	return &Query{fields: fields}, nil
}

func setToFields(set *ast.SelectionSet, labels []quad.Value) (out []field, all bool, _ error) {
	if set == nil {
		return
	}
	for _, s := range set.Selections {
		switch sel := s.(type) {
		case *ast.Field:
			fld, err := convField(sel, labels)
			if err != nil {
				return nil, false, err
			}
			if fld.Via == quad.IRI(AnyKey) {
				if len(set.Selections) != 1 {
					return nil, false, fmt.Errorf("expand all cannot be used with other fields")
				} else if len(fld.Has) != 0 || len(fld.Fields) != 0 {
					return nil, false, fmt.Errorf("filters inside expand all are not supported")
				}
				return nil, true, nil
			}
			out = append(out, fld)
		default:
			return nil, false, fmt.Errorf("unknown selection type: %T", s)
		}
	}
	return
}

func stringToVia(s string) (_ quad.IRI, rev bool) {
	if len(s) > 0 && s[0] == '~' {
		rev = true
		s = s[1:]
	}
	if len(s) > 2 && s[0] == '<' && s[len(s)-1] == '>' {
		s = s[1 : len(s)-1]

View on GitHub (pinned to 81dcd7d73e)

Solutions

1. Use `_` with no arguments and no sub-selection, then filter results client-side
2. Filter by labeling the data first and querying labeled predicates explicitly
3. Expand via explicit predicate names with `has` filters on named fields instead

Example fix

// before
q := "query { node { _(has: "name") } }"
// after
q := "query { node { _ } }"

function checkWildcardClean(sel) {
  if (sel.name?.value !== '_') return;
  if ((sel.arguments?.length ?? 0) > 0 || (sel.selectionSet?.selections?.length ?? 0) > 0) {
    throw new Error('expand all (_) cannot have arguments or sub-selections');
  }
}

const isCleanWildcard = (s) => s?.name?.value === '_' && !s.arguments?.length && !s.selectionSet;

When it happens

Trigger: Writing `query { node { _(has: "name") } }` or `query { node { _ { name } } }` — convField produces a wildcard field with non-empty Has or Fields, and setToFields rejects it.

Common situations: Trying to filter which predicates are expanded; nesting fields under `_` assuming it selects sub-properties; translating SQL-ish 'select * where' intuition into GraphQL syntax.

Understand the failure class

Background: UnsupportedOperationException and "is not supported" errors: when a library deliberately refuses a call — this error's family across 30 libraries.

Related errors

• expand all is not supported at top level
• expand all cannot be used with other fields
• unexpected arguments: %v (%d)
• unexpected value type for %v: %T
• cannot unnest more than one object on %q; use (%s: 1) to for

AI-assisted analysis of cayleygraph/cayley@81dcd7d73e (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/83af958fda21764d. Report an issue: GitHub.